LOGAN SQUARE — A string of recent car break-ins near the Logan Square Blue Line "L" station has neighbors on high alert.
Christopher Kennedy, who has been living in a condominium building at the corner of Sawyer Avenue and Emmett Street since 2007, said his car was broken into three times while parked in the 2600 block of North Emmett Street over the last two months.
Nothing was stolen aside from a radar detector, but Kennedy said his belongings were "shuffled around" and his doors left open each time. Since the car windows and locks weren't broken, Kennedy said he didn't file a police report until the third incident.
Police confirmed the last incident, which they say happened sometime between the evening of Sept. 9 and the morning of Sept. 10.
"It's so unnerving," Kennedy said. "I've never had an issue before, but now I keep hearing it [happening] from so many people."
Kennedy, who is also the president of the condo association, said at least two of his neighbors have had their cars broken into on Emmett recently.
Kortney, who declined to provide her last name, said someone broke into her carpenter husband's car last month — just a few days after Kennedy's incidents — and stole about $700 worth of carpentry tools from the trunk, including drills, lasers and a saw.
She said the car was also parked in the 2600 block of North Emmett Street and there was no apparent damage to the windows or locks — the doors were just left open.
"It's just frustrating. We really love this neighborhood," she said.
The break-in came a couple of weeks after Kortney's husband witnessed a couple of kids walking down the street playing with car doors, she said.
"I'm shocked that this is continuing to happen," she said.
Kennedy said his fiancee saw a car with its windows broken parked on the block as recently as last week.
In response to Kennedy's thread on Everyblock earlier this week, a user named Erica Christine said: "This just happened to me last night/today and it happened in July too. They got into my locked car without damage."
The Chicago Police Department's online ClearPath crime reporting map, which shows data for only two-week increments per search, showed six reports of larceny near the CTA station for the period ending Sept. 14. There were nine reports of larceny around the CTA station in the period from Sept. 14-29.
Police do not typically respond to the scenes of car break-ins since the thieves are no longer there.
Victims are encouraged to call 311 to file a report over the phone or go online.
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